I'm confused Karen
 

:help: Hi i'm not sure if this is where my question belongs but am wanting some help. I am new to low carbing ( 1 week done) and the more i read on this site the more confused i am getting. I am vegetarian so the main fillers for my meals are cheese and cream and eggs with sour cream,moynaise and butter for flavouring . Aswell as vegies of course. My questions is how much of the dairy can i have each day. Somethings i read say dont worry about the amounts aslong as my carbs are low and others say i should limit the amout of cheese, cream etc i eat :q: What do you suggest. Also many of the recipes call for such things as cream cheese and heavy cream so if you have to limit the amouts what else is there for me to eat besides veggies and salad not eating meat :q:
I hope this all makes sense. I would appreciate some help because i'm scared that if i eat too much of the high fat foods i'm not going to lose any weight or even worse gain some :)
Thankyou for your time. :wave:

Anyone else viewing this are quite welcome to give me some tips because i am getting very stressed trying to figure it all out.Thankyou.

I think the most important thing is to make sure that you're getting adequate protein and adequate fat. You can take the principles of low-carbing and put a plan together that works for your situation.

I don't have any experience with low-carbing as a vegetarian, but if I was going to embark on a vegetarian plan what I would do is look at soy foods, find out what beans contain high amounts of protein and were low in carbs as well as nuts and seeds. I would make sure I used a combination of these in my meals so I wouldn't be relying on cheese as a major source of protein. I would also look into a high quality, plain whey protein isolate to bump up my protein.

Cream and sour cream is not that high in protein, so they're not the best protein source.

In the absence of carbohydrates, fat won't make you fat. Your body will use the protein to carry out the repairs it needs to do and you may gain a little muscle over time.

A Low-Carb Vegetarian cookbook has recently been released and I posted this in the Vegetarian forum Tips for Vegetarian Low-Carbers. I think it's full of great advice.

You may want to also search through the Vegetarian Low Carbers forum to pick up some tips and visit the journals of the people that post there for more inspiration.

Here are a few websites too

Vegetarian Low Carb - Mary

Vegetarian Lowcarb

Hope that helps you out. :)

Karen

Some ingredient questions
 

:wave: Hi Karen thankyou for your advice. I have spent time looking at the links you gave me :thup: . Most of the links are American products so i have a question about a couple of things i have that are meat free. :q:
"NUTMEAT" made by Sanitarium
Ingredients:Water,Wheat Gluten(23%),peanuts(20%),onion,salt.
Cal (100g)210
Protein(100g) 21.9
Far(100g)10
Carbohydrate(100g)6.9
Dietry Fibre(100g)2.1
:q:
"Casserole Mince" made by Sanitarium
Ingredients:Water,Wheat Gluten(17%0,Hydrolised Soy Protein,Wheat Flour,Flavour(contains sesame),sugar,colour(caramel),spice.
Cal(100g)86
Protein(100g)13.1
Fat (100g)0.6
Carbohydrate(100g)6.3
No Dietry Fibre listed?
Do these sound like appropriate foods for me to eat on a low carb plan? :q:

One more thing. You tell me to eat nuts and seeds but elsewhere i read not to have them?? :yum:

Today i had mock french toast from this website(breakfast)
Green salad leaves with two raw mushrooms,a little red capsicum,a little cucumber,a boiled egg,and olive oil for dressing.(lunch)
250g pack of frozen spinnach with a little butter and 1/4 c of mozzarella,two soy sausages and two fried mushrooms (fried in olive oil)(dinner)
Also three cups of coffee with cream :yum:
13 glasses of water ~300mls each
and a bite of chedder at mid morning.
Does this sound ok? :q: Some days i have a little cream or sour cream on my vegies and salald.
Thankyou for your time and your wonderful help. I really do appreciate it as i am the only one doing this and know of no-one else i can get advice from. :)

As I said, you can follow the principles of low-carbing. It's hard to follow the Atkins plan specifically because it is meat biased. Because you are vegetarian and cannot have pure, carb free protein, you have to adapt.

The Nutmeat sounds fine because it is high in protein and relatively low in carbs. The Casserole Mince looks to be not as good because it is lower in protein for the amount of carbs and contains sugar. Use nuts and seeds as a protein/fat supplement and not as an out-of-control snack. :)

Karen